With a great heave, he spat enough phlegm to choke a horse into the waste paper basket by his bed. Not even twenty-five and he already sounded like an old man in the morning. It might be high time to give up the high times. Once his eyes adjusted to the morning light, they settled on the note he ...
Brian asked Alice. He’d been back to work for a full week now and was in desperate need of something to take his mind off his negative feelings toward the school. Alice pushed the dishwasher door shut and turned it on. It started with a deep rumble and a hiss of spraying water. “I think I’ll ta...
The world had changed and now every gathering was a cause for alarm. The West Side Highway had been blocked off for ten blocks in each direction and the entire convention hall was surrounded by a reserve of troops, police, undercover security, news vans, limos and town cars carrying invitees, pho...
The news wasn’t good. “Yo, Jay, I think we’re screwed tonight,” he said. Jason had just rolled out of bed, or couch, to be more precise, when Jeopardy! came on TV. He’d just shouted out the answer to the Daily Double and fist-pumped when he got it right. “I do know my Potent Potables,” he said, l...
Over the past couple of days, he appreciated the fact that his job in the health food store required very little thought and was full of enough mindless routine that he could lose himself in its repetition. He checked the display. Jessica Backman. After spending so much time and energy trying t...
I assumed it had slunk off on its own, lying in wait like a lion until it was needed again. I made a quick stop before the supermarket, saw the oak doors were locked and read the plaque installed in the masonry. With any luck, it would be open when I was done with the shop...
His eyes looked about ready to fall out of his skull. “Guess I’m not so crazy after all,” Mick muttered. “Say what?” the Italian kid asked. He was busy tying a pair of Windbreakers together so he could make a sack to carry supplies in. Mick didn’t a...
Goddammit! He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The old woman dangled upside down, blood trickling from a wound around her neck. Her wails degraded to desperate gurgles. The bass boom of shotguns rattled his rib cage. One of her ankles was lodged in the mouth of the mother of all Jersey Devils...
Jessica asked him to meet her in the hotel bar in an hour so they could talk. Eddie changed out of his sweaty, wet clothes and into a pair of worn blue jeans and button down shirt. With nothing much else to do, he rode the elevator and sat at the bar a half hour early. The...